HTC has teased that some users may not even need to wear their latest Vive Ultimate Trackers soon thanks to an upcoming AI-powered body tracking update.
HTC’s Vive Ultimate Trackers are capable of inside-out body tracking thanks to the inclusion of two on-board cameras that track its own position in space, requiring you to strap them to your elbows, feet, or hips for full-body tracking.
Now the company has shown off a video about how its Vive XR Elite headset, Face Tracker module, and Vive Ultimate Tracker pucks can be useful in physical therapy. In it, we get a look at a single Vive Tracker pointed at a user doing a sit-up, with the device placed on a nearby tripod, ostensibly making sure the user is executing the right moves.
“In addition, the incoming AI body tracking doesn’t require the patients to wear the trackers,” the company says in the video. “This will lead the rehabilitation experience to a new level.”
While it’s clear the update is being positioned for enterprise use, when the company first showed off is AI body tracking at GDC 2024 back in March the company said the new feature would service “VTube, Arcade, healthcare and more” with the OpenXR-supported device capable of tracking 26 joints, suggesting it will be broadly released as an integral software update.
As shown in the GDC 2024 demo, it seems to be primarily targeting non-VR use cases, working essentially like a webcam attached to an AI pipeline. We’ve reached out to HTC for more clarity on when/how the update will work, so check back soon.
Released in late 2023, the $200 Vive Ultimate Trackers are the company’s first to make use of inside-out optical tracking, departing from the SteamVR base station ecosystem that drives its various PC VR headsets and Vive Tracker 3.0 released in 2021.
Thanks to Antony ‘SkarredGhost‘ Vitillo for pointing us to the news.
HTC has teased that some users may not even need to wear their latest Vive Ultimate Trackers soon thanks to an upcoming AI-powered body tracking update.
HTC’s Vive Ultimate Trackers are capable of inside-out body tracking thanks to the inclusion of two on-board cameras that track its own position in space, requiring you to strap them to your elbows, feet, or hips for full-body tracking.
Now the company has shown off a video about how its Vive XR Elite headset, Face Tracker module, and Vive Ultimate Tracker pucks can be useful in physical therapy. In it, we get a look at a single Vive Tracker pointed at a user doing a sit-up, with the device placed on a nearby tripod, ostensibly making sure the user is executing the right moves.
“In addition, the incoming AI body tracking doesn’t require the patients to wear the trackers,” the company says in the video. “This will lead the rehabilitation experience to a new level.”
While it’s clear the update is being positioned for enterprise use, when the company first showed off is AI body tracking at GDC 2024 back in March the company said the new feature would service “VTube, Arcade, healthcare and more” with the OpenXR-supported device capable of tracking 26 joints, suggesting it will be broadly released as an integral software update.
As shown in the GDC 2024 demo, it seems to be primarily targeting non-VR use cases, working essentially like a webcam attached to an AI pipeline. We’ve reached out to HTC for more clarity on when/how the update will work, so check back soon.
Released in late 2023, the $200 Vive Ultimate Trackers are the company’s first to make use of inside-out optical tracking, departing from the SteamVR base station ecosystem that drives its various PC VR headsets and Vive Tracker 3.0 released in 2021.
Thanks to Antony ‘SkarredGhost‘ Vitillo for pointing us to the news.
HTC has released a beta for its Vive Ultimate Tracker that brings support to third-party PC VR headsets, such as PC-tethered Quest and Pico headsets, letting you do body tracking in supported apps.
Unlike previous Vive Trackers, which required SteamVR base stations, Vive Ultimate Tracker makes use of inside-out optical tracking thanks to each unit’s dual wide-FOV cameras.
At launch in November, the device was only compatible with HTC standalones Vive XR Elite and Vive Focus 3. As promised, now the company is launching beta access to OpenXR/SteamVR based PC VR headsets, like Valve Index or Quest 2/3/Pro with Link.
The plug-and-play solution lets you link up to five trackers per headset for multi-point full-body tracking across a variety of supported apps, such as VRChat, Neos, Blade & Sorcery,Soccer Skill Shot, and Dash Dance. Realistically though, you only need three: one for the hips, two for the feet.
HTC says users should have a 3×3 meters (10×10 feet), well-lit area that is clear of obstacles. Users should also place their trackers “at least 1.5 meters away from any environmental obstacles” during setup, the company says.
To get started with the beta, you need to head to the Viverse Discord (invite link) and opt-in to the Ultimate Tracker PC Beta channel. There, you’ll find a video that includes a code for the beta branch in the Vive Streaming Hub software. To learn more about Vive Ultimate Tracker, or to snag the $200 device, head to Vive.com.
HTC teased a self-tracking Vive Tracker that doesn’t need base stations.
Vive Trackers are used by businesses in bespoke VR software to track real-world objects, and by VRChat users to track body parts such as their torso, eblow, legs, and feet.
The current Vive Tracker 3.0 shipped in 2021. It’s priced at $130 but requires SteamVR Tracking base stations, available from $135 each.
The new ‘Self-Tracking Tracker’ is set to launch in Q3 of this year. It has two wide field of view cameras and an onboard processor to perform inside-out positional tracking, like a Quest Pro controller without any buttons, triggers, haptics, or sticks. This means it doesn’t need base stations nor to be within view of a headset’s cameras.
It will connect to a specific USB-C dongle, which HTC says will support up to 5 trackers at once. It will support the OpenXR standard, so won’t require a HTC headset.
HTC claims it weighs under 100 grams and is approximately 50% smaller than Vive Tracker 3.0. However, it won’t replace Vive Tracker 3.0 – it will be sold alongside it. Typically camera-based inside-out tracking doesn’t work well in plain rooms with no high-contrast features or in low light, while base stations work in almost any environment.
Like previous Vive Trackers, it will support standard 1/4” threaded screw mounting, the same used by cameras and speakers. There’s also a new magnetically-attaching clip mount, and HTC says it will release the CAD files so people can 3D print their own mounts.
HTC says the Self-Tracking Tracker is still in the development phase and didn’t announce a price.
HTC unveiled a new VR tracker device at CES 2022 today, this time targeting its $1,300 enterprise-focused standalone headset, Vive Focus 3. It’s slated to go on sale sometime early this year, starting at $129.
Unlike its SteamVR-compatible Vive Tracker, the new Vive Wrist Tracker is a wrist-worn device which hooks into Vive Focus 3’s inside-out tracking system. It does this essentially the same way the headset’s controllers are tracked in room-scale space, i.e. through infrared LEDs that are tracked optically through the headset’s onboard camera sensors.
HTC says in the announcement that the tracker allows users to either strap it to their wrist for what the company calls “advanced hand tracking” in addition to using controllers, or to objects like gun controllers, Ping-Pong paddles, or tools.
Below you can see a Nerf gun has been rigged up with Vive Wrist Tracker, making for a 6DOF-tracked virtual weapon:
The company says Vive Wrist Tracker is 85% smaller than Vive Focus 3’s controller, and 50% lighter at 63g. It boasts up to four hours of constant use, charged via USB-C. HTC says it includes a simple one-button pairing feature for wireless connection, and also features a removable strap for easy cleaning.
As for its more accurate hand tracking, this is what the company says in Vive Wrist Tracker’s announcement:
“When user wears the tracker on the wrist, we can predict the tracker’s motion trajectories even when the tracker is out of camera’s view in a while by using high-frequency IMU data and an advanced kinematic model. With this technology, we can predict their hand position when the hands leave the tracking camera view.”
Road to VR skipped the physical bit of CES 2022 this year, however we’re very interested to see the wrist tracker in action to see if it makes a material difference in terms of hand tracking.
Image courtesy HTC
Likely its biggest appeal is the ability to track objects, giving location-based entertainment venues and enterprise users the ability to avoid the typical mixing and matching of hardware ecosystems, such as OptiTrack or SteamVR base stations. To boot, HTC says its releasing CAD files so prospective owners can build custom docking solutions or harnesses around the tracker.
HTC is initially launching Vive Wrist Tracker in the US starting early 2022, priced at $129/€129/£119. Although they haven’t said as much, that pricing means it will very likely roll out Vive Wrist Tracker to the UK and EU at a later date.
In addition to Vive Wrist Tracker, HTC unveiled a few other Vive Focus 3 accessories, including a new charging travel case and a multi-battery charging dock. It’s not clear when either of those will go on sale, or for what price. We’ll be keeping an eye on the Vive accessories product page in the meantime.
Tundra Labs, the company developing the Tundra Tracker SteamVR Tracking accessory, has revealed pricing for the device starting at $95. Previously planned for earlier in the year, a Kickstarter campaign for the tracker is set to launch on March 29th with the first deliveries expected in July.
Compared to the new Vive Tracker 3.0 revealed this week, Tundra Labs says the Tundra Tracker is still the smaller of the two, though it isn’t clear yet how the improved battery life of the Vive Tracker 3.0 will compare to the Tundra Tracker (Tundra Labs previously said its tracker would have better battery life than the Vive Tracker 2.0).
This week has brought the first look at the official pricing for the Tundra Tracker. Pricing is slightly confusing because the company is actually selling three different dongles, all of which connect via one USB connection, but are capable of connecting a different number of devices. We’ve labeled them A, B, and C for clarity:
Tracker
Dongle
Price
1x
–
$95
1x
Dongle A (up to 3 devices)
$130
3x
Dongle A (up to 3 devices)
$300
5x
Dongle B (up to 5 devices)
$460
7x
Dongle C (up to 7 devices)
$630
–
Dongle A (up to 3 devices)
$43
–
Dongle B (up to 5 devices)
$60
–
Dongle C (up to 7 devices)
$80
Tundra Labs is positioning its multi-device dongles as a unique advantage over the Vive Tracker dongles.
Vive Trackers need one dongle per tracker, so if you want to use 5x Vive Trackers for body tracking, you’d need connect 5x Vive Tracker dongles to your computer (each on their own USB port, or with a third-party USB hub).
All of the Tundra Tracker dongles, on the other hand, use a single USB port but can connect multiple devices. Tundra Labs says its dongles are also capable of connecting Vive Trackers, controllers, and other peripherals which use SteamVR Tracking (including the ability to mix and match), and its dongles are designed to fit inside the ‘frunk’ USB accessory port on the Valve Index. (Vive Tracker dongles can also connect any SteamVR Tracking peripherals, but only one device per dongle.)
Tundra Tracker prototype next to Vive Tracker 2.0 | Image courtesy Tundra Labs
Tundra Labs told us at the outset that it was aiming for “slightly cheaper” pricing than the Vive Tracker 2.0; here’s how pricing compares between Tundra Tracker, Vive Tracker 2.0, and the new Vive Tracker 3.0:
Tracker Count
Tundra Tracker
Vive Tracker 2.0
Vive Tracker 3.0
1x
$130 (Dongle A)
$100
$130
3x
$300 (Dongle A)
$300
$390
5x
$460 (Dongle B)
$500
$650
7x
$630 (Dongle C)
$700
$910
Tundra Labs said this week that it’s still on track for a March 29th Kickstarter. Assuming the campaign succeeds, initial delivers are expected to begin in July.
After all the teasing recently on Twitter, HTC Vive has finally unveiled what all the fuss is about, and it isn’t a new headset – not yet anyway. The company has revealed its third-generation Vive Tracker and a Vive Facial Tracker.
HTC Vive Facial Tracker
The Vive Tracker originally launched back in 2017, allowing developers to play with full-body tracking or the tracking of peripherals. Today’s launch offers a new and improved Vive Tracker 3.0, providing up to 75% increased battery life, 15% reduction in weight, and a 33% smaller footprint over the previous generation. That means a single charge should give you around seven hours of continuous use.
Fully compatible with SteamVR 2.0 and 1.0 tracking solutions and all SteamVR-based headsets, the Vive Tracker 3.0 is fully backwards compatible with previous generations and features the same mounting system for easy integration into existing setups. It’s available in Europe today, retailing for £129 GBP/€139 EUR on HTC Vive’s website as well as participating retailers Scan, Amazon and Overclockers UK.
Trackers are a vital part of VR experiences like Rezzil Player 21, a title designed for football training. “The new VIVE mini-Tracker has faultless tracking for Rezzil, and great reliability,” said the Rezzil team. “In addition the smaller size really helps with younger Academy players, meaning skills development can be supported for any age group. Rezzil works with the best football clubs in the world, so only the best hardware will do.”
The Vive Facial Tracker, on the other hand, is entirely new. As the name suggests, this new add-on tracks your face for a real-time depiction of facial expressions. Able to track 38 facial movements across the lips, jaw, teeth, tongue, chin, and cheeks, essential for making avatars more expressive and lifelike. Able to simply stick to the HTC Vive Pro – no mention of Vive Cosmos compatibility – the tracker has a dual-camera setup with a 60Hz tracking rate and an IR illuminator for low light situations. It’s also available in Europe today, retailing for £129/€139 via the HTC Vive website.
“The VR community has unlimited creativity and we’ve seen the VIVE Tracker everywhere from industrial use, film production, to sports, gaming, and more. With a sleeker design and even longer battery life, the new VIVE Tracker 3.0 is even more versatile,” said Graham Wheeler, General Manager of HTC EMEA in a statement. “And with the new VIVE Facial Tracker, it’s easier than ever to create ultra-realistic characters.”
As HTC Vive continues to reveal more of its 2021 hardware plans, VRFocus will keep you updated.
A Swedish teenager built a tracking kit to dramatically lower the cost of VR body tracking.
With the help of JA Sweden, a non-profit promoting student entrepreneurship, Anton Bill Månsson and two friends founded a startup called Stonx. This week they opened preorders for a front-facing dev kit.
No VR system on the market today comes with body tracking, but some VR enthusiasts use HTC’s Vive Trackers or Microsoft’s Kinect. Social platform VRChat is the most popular use case, as well as mixed reality streaming with an avatar for LIV.
HTC Vive Trackers cost $99 each. Typically three are used for body tracking. If you don’t already have SteamVR Base Stations they’re $149 each, so the total cost approaches $600.
Microsoft’s Kinect is no longer sold, but available used for around $200. It works, but only from a front-facing angle and the tracking quality isn’t great.
StonX dev kit is priced at 690 SEK including shipping (around $80). It comes with four trackers (called Cookies) and one ‘Beacon’.
The Beacon connects to your PC via USB 2. Cookies are unpowered, there’s no charging or connecting of any sort involved. One Beacon offers front-facing body tracking, but the full version is planned to come with two Beacons for any angle.
So how is it possible for three teenagers to build trackers much cheaper than HTC’s?
HTC’s tracking tech was designed by Valve to deliver sub-mm precision for head & controller tracking. But the minimum viable tracking quality for other limbs isn’t necessarily as strict, so StonX is currently aiming for sub-cm, making cheaper tracking techniques viable.
StonX Cookie trackers are passive colored retroreflectors with no electronics. The Beacon houses a 120Hz camera flanked by powerful LEDs. StonX software uses hand-crafted computer vision algorithms to follow the movement of each Cookie.
StonX hopes to sell the final kit, with two Beacons, for 1390 SEK (around $165) later this year. If they can pull that off, it could drive much wider adoption of body tracking on SteamVR.
Rezzil’s virtual reality (VR) simulation platform for training professional football players has been used by clubs around the world for several years now. Today, that expertise is available at home with the launch of Rezzil Player 21 on Steam and Viveport.
Employed by elite clubs such as Manchester United, PSG and Arsenal, the Rezzil platform provides football fans with real-world drills and challenges which have been developed in collaboration with top sports coaches and physios.
Rezzil Player 21 is free on either store and features a ‘Finishing Challenge’ with 3-time limits – 30, 60 or 90 seconds and an ‘Endless’ mode which lets you take on a more casual practice session. To take the experience one step further the additional Color Combos DLC can be purchased, a drill taken from the pro-level version.
Adding to the authenticity you’ll be able to buy genuine Adidas boots and balls like the Predator Mutators or the official Mexico 86 ball. The more you practice and build up those stats you’ll earn achievements and XP to unlock new in-game kit.
“Rezzil has proven to be an essential training tool for many of the world’s top football clubs, and we’re delighted to be offering people at home the chance to play like the pros with Rezzil Player 21,” said Adam Dickinson, Development Director of Rezzil in a statement. “We’re very aware that the current pandemic has really affected both pro and amateur players and so Rezzil is a great way to help keep their fine footballing skills in focus.”
As Rezzil Player 21 is a football simulator you can’t simply slip on any old PC VR compatible headset to play. The software requires at least one Vive Tracker although Rezzil does advise two to get the full experience. Therefore support is limited to the HTC Vive/Vive Pro/Vive Cosmos Elite and Valve Index.
Rezzil Player 21 is free to download now, for any further updates on the latest VR simulators keep reading VRFocus.
Tundra Labs, which makes chips and development kits for devices which use SteamVR Tracking, is building its own tracking accessory for the tracking ecosystem. The company is positioning its Tundra Tracker as a smaller, cheaper, and better alternative to HTC’s Vive Tracker. A Kickstarter campaign to fund the project and gather feedback is planned for next month.
The Open SteamVR Tracking Ecosystem
SteamVR Tracking Base Stations
Valve’s SteamVR Tracking is an open tracking system which allows any third party to build devices which are tracked by SteamVR Base Stations. Valve’s own Index headset, along with third-party headsets from companies like HTC and Pimax, make use of the shared system for high quality room-scale tracking. The flexible system allows users to mix and match devices (like being able to use an Index headset with Vive wand controllers), and also allows additional devices to be added into the mix—like HTC’s Vive Tracker, which is a general-purpose SteamVR Tracking device that can be attached to things like props or limbs to track those objects in VR.
As the only consumer-available device of its kind, the Vive Tracker has become the defacto general purpose tracker for the SteamVR Tracking ecosystem. It’s commonly used to augment VR motion capture by attaching to a user’s feet and hips, thus providing six points of body tracking (head, hands, waist, and feet) rather than the usual three (head and hands). This allows the movements of players to be captured and represented more accurately, giving VR avatars an impressively wide range of motion.
Friendly Competition
Image courtesy Tundra Labs
As the defacto choice, comparisons to the Vive Tracker are inevitable; Tundra Labs founder Luke Beno says the Tundra Tracker will best the incumbent in several ways.
Specifically the device is expected to be “60% smaller, consume about 50% less power, weight 50% less, and have twice the battery life,” compared to the Vive Tracker, he tells Road to VR. Beno also plans to deliver the Tundra Tracker at a slightly lower cost than the $100 Vive Tracker, along with additional discounts for tracker bundles.
But the Tundra Tracker isn’t purely a competitor, it can also work in tandem with the Vive Tracker, allowing users who have already invested in Vive Trackers to augment their tracking setup without needing to completely switch from one tracker to the other.
In fact, users will be able to pair Vive Trackers, Tundra Trackers, and even Index controllers to the Tundra Tracker’s USB dongle. “It’s the beautiful nature of SteamVR’s open ecosystem,” Beno says.
Placement & Mounting Options
Image courtesy Tundra Labs
With its reduced size and weight, Beno says the Tundra Tracker will also offer more flexible placement options.
“The tracker shape is also designed to fit in places that Vive Tracker cannot. The default baseplate has two loops where a user can thread though a strap or shoe laces. I’m also considering integrating magnets into the base so that it can snap onto a metal plate that can be embedded or sewn into clothing.”
Image courtesy Tundra Labs
Tundra Labs is also considering other base plates for different applications, but is waiting to lock down the options until gathering feedback from potential customers. “I’d like to sort of ‘crowd source’ ideas [for the tracker’s mounting options] such that it is not a ‘one size fits all’ solution like Vive Tracker,” he says.
Tundra Tracker Kickstarter
Image courtesy Tundra Labs
To that end, Tundra Labs will run a Kickstarter campaign for the Tundra Tracker, which is planned to start in January with units shipping later in the year.
While the Kickstarter details are still being finalized, Beno tells Road to VR that Tundra Labs will also offer ‘multi-port dongles’ through the Kickstarter, which will allow users to pair multiple trackers (Tundra Trackers or Vive Trackers) using a single USB connection.
The plan is to offer multi-port dongles capable of pairing up to three, five, or seven trackers, respectively. They will also be small enough to fit into the opening in the front of the Valve Index headset (AKA the ‘frunk’), which would ensure the dongles stay close to the trackers for a strong connection.
Beyond the consumer Tundra Tracker and the multi-port dongle, Beno says the Kickstarter will also offer a ‘Dev Edition’ tracker which includes a “very comprehensive expansion connector,” which could be used by other companies to build functional, tracked accessories like VR guns, gloves, and more.
